Listen carefully, and you might hear something peculiar as this '72 Torino rolls by. Yes, there's that wonderful cacophony of overlap-enhanced combustion you'd expect from a lumpity-lump big-block. However, if you knew that Brian Zoeller calls his car Roxanne, you'd swear that there's a strident yet strangely pleasing falsetto voice encoded between the exhaust pulses, belting out a familiar '70s tune in a British accent. After you get the obligatory giggles out of your system, the name Roxanne just seems so right. Not that the Torino has led an illicit and promiscuous lifestyle, but because getting involved with a beast that's so big, so underappreciated, so non-mainstream, so shunned by the average enthusiast, seems so forbidden. But hey, big girls need lovin' too, and there's lots to love about this Torino.

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Although it's very much a work in progress, frugal spending and a comprehensive long-term battle plan have yielded a car that's 100 percent cool and functional just 75 percent of the way into the build. The Torino packs a mildly worked-over 460, a fortified 9-inch rearend, frat boy straight-body panels, sweet paint, and a killer stance all for under $20,000. Sure, Brian dreams of someday building a monster stroker motor, throwing on a power adder, and tightening up the suspension, but prioritizing the big-ticket items has enabled him to enjoy his car while the final 25 percent of the project is still being ironed out. Hot rodders rarely exercise the discipline necessary to emulate a similar approach, but it sure beats trying to be a hero by tackling everything at once, only to end up with an incomplete jalopy surrounded by an expensive pile of depreciating parts. For Brian, going fullsize isn't just a fetish. His favorite pastime is loading all five of his kids inside the Torino's capacious cocoon, and hitting up cruise night.

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Surrounded by drag racers as a kid, Brian has owned an impressive list of muscle machines through the year including a '70 Mach 1, a '72 Cutlass, and a 429-powered '72 Torino. He's done the late-model thing, too, having built and raced several third-gen Camaros and 5L Mustangs. One of those late models was a 700hp '94 Mustang Cobra that routinely terrorized the streets of Indianapolis. Unfortunately, when some unexpected medical expenses started stacking up, the car had to go. "I tried my best to keep it, but something had to give, so I put the Mustang on eBay and sold it for $18,000. All my friends knew how much I loved that car and how hard it was for me to part with it, but my family's needs and finances needed to be my top priority at the time," Brian says.

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A year later, the bills were under control, but Brian was experiencing a bad case of post-hot rodding depression. Money was still tight, so staying on a strict budget was imperative. Out of all the cars he owned in the past, Brian's first '72 Torino stood out the most, so the search for a second one was on. "I really loved that car, but had to sell it in order to buy a house," he says. "I then saw an article in PHR (October 2005) titled '9 Cars You Need to Build' that showed how cool Torinos could be if given the Pro Touring treatment. That really inspired the direction of my build, and gave me a clear vision of what I wanted to accomplish."

The supply of '72 Torinos in the local Indianapolis market proved slim, but Brian found a good candidate listed on eBay for $3,000 in Colorado. "I bought it sight unseen, and the seller had very little feedback, so I took a bit of a gamble. Fortunately, when the car arrived it was very straight with virtually no rust damage, and the former owner had already swapped in a 460 big-block and a C6 transmission," Brian says. That was the good part, but the interior was in shambles. "The car was used as a roundy-round dirt track car, so it was pretty much gutted to save weight. It even had a dinky two-barrel carb on it, which I assume was required by the rulebook. There was also a giant 50-gallon fuel cell in the trunk, and the former owner cut a hole in the bottom of the trunk to get it to fit. I'd never even seen a cell that big before."

11/21That cool-looking dual-nostril hood is actually a stock piece. Its functional openings feed fresh air into the carb.

With the help of his friend, Marc Beaman, Brian extracted the circle track fuel cell, patched up the trunk, and installed a 20-gallon unit in its place. Piecing together the interior, however, proved to be a much bigger challenge. "Finding interior and trim parts for cars like this can be a real challenge. I found most of the parts on Torino message boards and on eBay," he says. "Since I wanted to install bucket seats, I had to track down a center console, which was nearly impossible to find. If that wasn't bad enough, it was even harder to find the mounting brackets for it. If it wasn't for a guy who I found online who was willing to dig them up out of his barn, I probably wouldn't have figured out how to mount the thing." Despite the frustrations, the interior went together piece by piece, and Brian finished it off with an Eclipse stereo and a Classic Auto A/C system.

12/21What used to be a gutted cabin has been outfitted with Scat bucket seats, a Grant GT steering wheel, a Classic Air A/C system, and an Eclipse stereo with an eight-disc CD changer. The left and right kick panels were modified to house the front speakers. A cupholder out of an Infiniti G35 has been retrofitted into the stock center console.

In contrast to the inside, sorting out the body was cake. The only sheetmetal repair necessary was a small spot of rust on the roof. After shaving all the trim pieces and spraying the Torino in a new coat of metallic blue off of a BMW M3, the exterior was complete. Shifting his focus to the powertrain, Brian was well aware that this wouldn't be the Torino's last rebuild. As such, he kept things simple by retaining the stock crank and rods, dingle ball honing the cylinder bores, and popping in a new set of rings, bearings, and Speed-Pro 9.5:1 pistons. Up top, lightly ported Edelbrock aluminum cylinder heads, a Performer dual-plane intake manifold, and a Barry Grant 750-cfm carburetor feed the short-block. The 460 is managed by a COMP 233/241-at-.050 hydraulic roller cam. Spent fumes exit through Hooker 1 7/8-inch long-tube headers, and dual Flowmaster mufflers. Although the combination has yet to be dyno'd, Brian estimates output to be in the 550-600hp range. So far, the factory C6 transmission that came with the Torino has held up just fine, which receives torque loads from a TCI 2,500-stall converter. It's backed by a stock 9-inch rearend that's been beefed up with 31-spline Moser axles, a Detroit Truetrac differential, and 3.55:1 gears.

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In order to keep costs down, the suspension and brakes are pretty much stock. Nevertheless, Brian is well aware of the benefits of increasing the Torino's shoe size, and he upgraded the rolling stock with a set of 18-inch Bonspeed Wild Thang wheels wrapped in gooey Nitto rubber. Like any hot rodder, stock will only suffice for so long, and Brian has a long list of future plans that he hopes will soon materialize. "If finances allow, I will be giving Roxanne a serious power boost. I'm throwing around the idea of building a 545ci stroker with Kaase P-51 heads, or putting a blower or nitrous on the current motor," he says. "Of course, I also want to put on a real exhaust system in place of the tiny 2.25-inch pipes that came with the car, and upgrade the brakes as well. So far, I have less than $20,000 in her, so while she's definitely a budget build, I'm still very proud of how she's turned out so far."

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And there he goes again, talking about his Torino like it's a girl named Roxanne. So just where, oh where, does that name-and the tradition of naming his cars-come from? "I have a crazy cousin who had a GTO back in the day, and he was always talking to his car. He'd beg it not to overheat at stoplights, and encourage it to give it all she had when he put the hammer down," he says. "Everyone thought it was hilarious, and gave him a hard time about it. That kind of stuck with me, and now I name all of my cars. I really don't know where the name Roxanne came from, but my kids thought it was a good name for the Torino." For a car that's so big, so underappreciated, so non-mainstream, and so shunned by the average enthusiast, we'd have to agree. Like a wise British rock band once said, there's nothing wrong with lusting after forbidden fruit named Roxanne.